Cloth nappies and barrier cream??

[ChocOrange05]

Hi all - I am expecting my first baby in 2 weeks and have decided to use a local nappy laundry service.

I am using the Bambinex cloth nappies and at one of our NCT classes someone said that if you use cloth nappies you need to use a barrier cream.

Is this the case, and if so what barrier cream should I use?

In the nappy pack I have the disposable liners, the cloth nappy and the wrap - is there anything else I need?

Thanks in advance.

You can use barrier creams if you need to but you don't have to. The best we found was sudocrem, others good ones are metanium, weleda calendula, earth friendly baby red clover and bepanthen.
Just because you use cloth doesn't mean you have to use a cream.

Thanks needaholiday, when you say if you need them, does that mean if the baby gets a rash?? Not sure if I should wait till then?

I have bought some Weleda Calendula as it was recommended to me - is that a barrier cream then? Its all so confusing!

You don't actually need to use it unless baby is a bit red or has a rash. Usually it is enough to line your nappy with a fleece liner which acts as a stay dry barrier and almost draws wee away from the skin and down into the nappy.
Cloth is really easy to use. Honestly it is.

well done on using the nappy service ChocO

Most babies in cloth don't get any nappy rash at all, provided nappies are changed frequently. Fleece liners are better than disposable ones in terms of locking moisture away from the baby's bum; I'm surprised your service doesn't use them as well. And tbh, paper only much use as a liner when baby is formula fed or older and has more solidly formed poo as breast fed baby poo washes off just fine.

sudocrem is good, but some babies can react to it as it's pretty highly perfumed with lavender which can irritate. The weleda calendula cream will do the job very nicely as a general barrier, and then you can resort to something like metanium (the gold standard of nappy rash cream in my sadly very experienced opinion) if and when you get a proper rash that needs treating. Just remember with all these things, less is most definately more. The application should be so thin that you can't see the cream at all, otherwise the nappies get clogged up and lose absorbency.

I can send you a couple of fleece liners to try out if you like

Thanks for your responses Daisy and needaholiday Daisy I don't know anything about fleece liners. Are they reuseable too or do you throw them out?? See how much I don't know! Would be fab if you could send me a couple!

No, they just get washed with the nappies, but are great at keeping baby's bum nice and dry. The newborn nappies I've bought are fleece lined and then I'll move onto my fleece pockets, so I have loads of fleece liners that are surplus to requirements. You should ask your nappy service about providing them.

and always happy to help with nappy questions; it's all practice for when I get my advisor stuff off the ground.

Daisy so I should be stocking up on the free advice before you start charging?!?

Do you know the bambinex nappies?? I read good things about them - they do have some sort of booster pad inside as well as the nappy (but you still use a liner) and I think they are made of bamboo too. But you think a fleece liner would still be good, and I assume you use this instead of the disposable liners I have?

bambinex are lovely.....nice and soft and quite absorbent. (Be prepared for the nappy to be absolutely sodden at each change though; this can be a bit of a shock when using cloth for the first time as dispos lock it all away). I used bambinex with DD before she got too wriggly for a two part system and really liked them; gorgeous colours as well.

the booster is just that....a booster for when you need a wee bit more absorbency, like overnight or if going on a long car journey, and you would still use the fleece liner with that. A tip I had was to put the booster on the outside of the nappy, between the nappy and the wrap, but in my pregnant and ill state, can't remember the reasoning behind it

And yes still use the fleece liner even with the booster.

ChocOrange - Are the laundry service providing the bambinex for you? If you want them to launder your fleece liners too you should probably check they are happy to do that. In my (rather limited) experience of nappy laundry services they can be quite inflexible. Some insist you use disposable liners for hygiene reasons (not a problem if you home launder but if they only collect once a week they prefer the solids to have been flushed away before you put the nappies in the pail).

If they won't wash the fleece liners for you and you still want to use them you could wash them at home - a bonus of that is that you could use reusable wipes then too and wash them with the liners (no special treatment required just 40 or 60 with normal powder). Reusable wipes are fab, you can just cut up an old cot sheet and use that as a cloth with some warm water - it will save you loads of money and they are far better for your babies bottom. You can also buy packs of pre-cut wipes if you prefer.

If you get fed up with the laundry service (not that I'm suggesting you will but just in case ) then washing them at home is a lot less time consuming than you might think - the only downside is a need for a bit of drying space...

Good luck with your new baby

Hi BBM

listen to BBM ChocO; she is very wise

Hello Lacks - get yourself over to the general chat thread....

...I'm not really

Thanks BBM - the drying space is exactly the reason I wanted to use a laundry service - our house is too small to have nappies drying everywhere. When you say reusable wipes, I assume you mean instead of baby wipes or cotton wool? I was thinking about these as I have read that baby wipes are very harsh on babies bum's. Random question - Would you wash those seperately to your other clothes if covered in poo or with everything else???

I suppose I can use the fleece liners if I am happy to wash them myself?

I use totsbots fluffles and my dd has had really bad nappy rash since she started on solids. Nothing to do with the nappies as I went onto eco disposables for 1 month as a test and the rash got worse rather than better. As such I have to use a barrier to keep it at bay. I use epaderm, it is expensive about £10 for a massive pot but it lasts ages and I really slather it on at every nappy change.

I home launder and tip the worst out down the loo, any extra stuck to the nappy usually comes off if you dangle it in the toilet and give it a good sluice about. Worst case you have to run it under the tap and give the sink a good clean after. As long as you get the worst off the washing machine does the rest. As there isn't usually much poo left on the nappies I don't mind washing other stuff with them but its usually baby things, sheets etc and I only tend to do this when the machine needs filling.

Not being quite as virtuous as some of the others I use paper liners but you can wash them if they've only been wee'd on. I just reuse them til they fall apart. Its worth thinking about the wipe situation. You don't want to have to sort out the contents of a pooy nappy, rather than just tipping the contents down the loo. So def having something that goes in either the nappy bin or the loo is a good idea. You can use paperliners that are presoaked as wipes and these are flushable.

If you are worried that you're taking on extra work DON'T, I used disposables for her first couple of months coz I'd bought birth to potty nappies and they were so chunky I felt they restricted her movement when she was tiny. While using disposables they often leak and poo goes down the legs and up the back. This leaves you scrubbing it off in the sink anyway so I remember thinking that I might as well have been using the washables!

Incidently the washables hardly ever leaked in comparison.

Good luck

ChocOrange - yes, instead of wipes or cotton wool. Disposable wipes can be quite harsh and they cost a fortune over the years. I got fed up with cotton wool pretty quickly.

I wash mine with the dirty nappies. When DS was tiny I washed his nappies, liners and clothes together - I just put the nappies in first and ran a quick cold rinse then added the clothes for the full wash - maybe you could do similar? The initial outlay wouldn't be much - a bit of fleece from a fabric shop for liners and an old pillow case or whatever cut up to make some wipes. You can use any fabric for wipes, fleece, cotton, terry etc - whatever you fancy although bear in mind some types might need hemming...

IKEA do 10 packs of biggish flannels for about £3 which make great reuseable wipes...or can be folded as a terry booster as well.